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US President Donald Trump brushed it off when asked whether he had read a memo by Secretary of State Marco Rubio last spring, in which he flagged Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with an alleged spy for the Chinese government.
"I would certainly check with the intelligence people. It could have been mentioned. Certainly, it didn't make much of an impact on me." The New York Times reported that Rubio had flagged the Nvidia CEO's relationship in the document circulated ahead of the US President's visit to Beijing in May. His comments came amid his continued support for Huang and an active investigation into his association with accused Chinese operative Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le. Speaking to reporters during a White House press briefing, the 80-year-old Republican noted that he had personally questioned the tech tycoon about the situation, specifically asking whether he suspected her true identity. "He said, 'I had no idea she was a spy', and I really believe him," Trump told reporters. The disclosure has triggered widespread international backlash over Jensen Huang's clandestine involvement, which he has publicly confessed to while offering an apology to his spouse. Meanwhile, Nvidia has initiated an independent internal inquiry into the incident. Concurrently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining the tech tycoon's connection with the accused operative. "I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape," the US President told reporters during the briefing. Alice Huang, who shares no familial ties with Jensen Huang, previously served as the managing director of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based enterprise that maintained commercial partnerships with Nvidia. These espionage claims have snowballed into profound national security concerns across Washington surrounding potential intellectual property breaches involving Nvidia's advanced artificial intelligence processors. Jensen Huang has previously engaged in extensive lobbying efforts in Washington to secure relaxed export controls on Nvidia semiconductor shipments bound for mainland China. The US President granted formal authorisation for the company's H200 microchips to be delivered to Beijing over the course of the year, although ambiguity remains over whether Chinese regulators will permit domestic commercial entities to procure them in substantial volumes. The revelations about Rubio flagging the affair six months ago emerge in the wake of previous investigative reporting by The New York Times indicating that Trump had been briefed nearly a year earlier that American intelligence services had electronically surveilled Alice Huang over suspicions of espionage on behalf of Beijing. Initial surveillance merely established her association with an unidentified American national before intelligence operatives subsequently identified the individual as the Nvidia chief. The earlier publication further detailed that Trump consciously opted against implementing punitive measures at that juncture, assessing that Nvidia's semiconductor hardware remained instrumental to America's strategic artificial intelligence competition with Beijing while viewing corporate market valuation as essential for bolstering financial equities. Indeed, when questioned on Sunday regarding his historical inaction, the US President maintained that he harboured no remorse. He praised Jensen Huang as "an honourable guy", adding that the tech executive "probably has an excuse for it". In response to the mounting international scrutiny, China rejected the spy allegations, characterising the accusations as a coordinated smear campaign directed against Beijing. (ANI)
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